The Transition Towards Hydrogen as a Sustainable Fuel : Exploring the Organizational Field of Hydrogen Mobility in Sweden

Sammanfattning: The overall goal with this master’s thesis is to describe the institutionalization process of the organizational field of Hydrogen Refuelling Stations (HRS) with green hydrogen produced via electrolysis for the heavy-duty truck sector in Sweden. Hydrogen mobility is a recent technology, which makes its organizational field formation and development processes interesting to examine. As society is becoming more concerned about sustainable transitions from fossil-based fuels to renewable carbon-free sources of fuels, it was deemed relevant to make a thesis regarding the topic. We recognized that there was a need to further investigate the institutional process of an organizational field that may not yet be established and working with recent technologies. By studying an organizational field in its early phases, one might be able to get a deeper understanding of the underlying processes behind the formation and development of an organizational field. As the purpose of this study was to get a deeper understanding of the institutionalization process of HRS infrastructure for fuel cell heavy duty trucks in Sweden, interviews with people from the organizational field were made.As little was known about the given organizational field, stakeholder theory was used toidentify the four stakeholder groups of Customers, Suppliers, Interest Groups and Governmentwere selected in order to understand the roles different stakeholders play in the formation and development processes of organizational fields. In addition, some external trigger events from institutionalization theory were added which were “technical discontinuities” and “shocks”that likely sparks change will be further explaining factors. Furthermore, the commitment-trust theory is utilized to understand activities in cross-organizational projects that build commitment and trust that in turn strengthens the legitimacy of the collaboration. By combining these additional theories with institutional theory, we expect to contribute to the understanding of field formation and development. An analysis was made, comparing our empirical findings with literature from the theoretical framework. From that it was possible to conclude that the selected organizational field is currently in the first stage of the new institutionalization process and hold a discussion of trigger events and the role the different stakeholder currently inhabits and if there is more to be done from each stakeholder in the future. We are also establishing which actions the stakeholders commonly take when it comes to build commitment and trust in cross organizational projects. Lastly, recommendations and practical/theoretical contributions are provided.